FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dr. Martha Russell, Associate Director
Media X at Stanford University, 650-723-1616
Martha.Russell@stanford.edu
Media X Reveals Transformative Insights for the Next Social Revolution
STANFORD, California, March 4, 2008 – “With billions of people carrying supercomputers in their pockets, all linked by high-speed wireless networks,” advised visionary critic and writer, Howard Rheingold, in a keynote address delivered at the 6th Media X Annual Meeting, “It stands to reason that we should prepare for more powerful social, political, and economic changes than those triggered by the alphabet or printing press.” http://mediax.stanford.edu/mar08_annual_meeting.html
“Basic science on participation, collaboration and virtual worlds, sponsored by Media X, is being applied to new digital, global, instant, mobile, online media that enable new forms of collective action, and these are likely to be more powerful than previous communication technologies,” added Charles (Chuck) House, Executive Director of Media X.
This year's Media X Annual Meeting featured new results from interdisciplinary teams catalyzed by Media X - describing the chain of effects across neuroscience, emotion and engagement; describing the importance of human-machine interfaces for energy-efficient buildings and cars; describing participation in mixed reality environments; describing best of class virtual collaboration processes and technologies in construction, education and medicine; and describing a novel approach to creating open source virtual worlds that includes automation and tracking capabilities.
Corporate and academic members of the Media X community spent a day and a half in presentations, panels and discussions on the impact of transformative insights from Media X-sponsored research at Stanford University. Media X, in its seventh year at Stanford University, stimulates high-value research via partnerships with companies seeking better understanding of the forces at play in this emergent digital world. Media X research initiatives, while funded by member companies, are developed under Stanford’s long-standing “open innovation” policies, and reported on annually at the Annual Meeting.
Rheingold explained, “What we know as liberty, democracy, and citizenship depends on the relationship between citizens, journalists, and governance. When the tools for communicating about issues change, these relationships change.” According to Mr. Rheingold, “The real impact of the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism, will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions.”
A video stream of Mr. Rheingold’s presentation can be seen here
Howard Rheingold’s focus on social frontiers and the powers of the mind have evolved through his interest in the territory where minds meet technology. His prescient books, blogs, and battlefields have addressed the cultural and political implications of online communications, and the collective action of virtual communities. Mr. Rheingold maintains an office in Second Life, teaches at UC Berkeley's School of Information and Stanford University, is a non-resident Fellow of the Annenberg School for Communication and a visiting Professor at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.
About Media X
Media X is a community of academic researchers and industry partners studying interactive communications and technology. Strategic corporate partners include DNP, Philips, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, and The University of Edinburgh. Members of Media X also include BP, FX-PAL, Intel, Intuit, Konica Minolta, Learning.com, Motorola, NBC Universal, NCast, Phillips, Quindi, Qwaq Forums, SAP, Sesame Workshop, Swivel Media, Tekes, Teknowledge, and Visa. For more information about Media X, see http://mediax.stanford.edu.
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